


that gravity (pulls on you and me)

by kay_emm_gee



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - The 100 Fusion, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-29
Updated: 2016-10-16
Packaged: 2018-08-18 10:57:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8159741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kay_emm_gee/pseuds/kay_emm_gee
Summary: Lydia folded her arms across her chest, lifted her chin, and with raised eyebrows said, “You sent a hundred juvenile delinquents to the ground with express instructions to keep the wristbands on at all costs.”It only took the doctor another beat. “Oh, for the love of–they’re taking them off because we told them not to?”Lydia threw her a grim smile of approval, and Dr. McCall sighed heavily. The despair in her eyes had been replaced by a glimmer of hope, and Lydia wondered who it was on the ground that this woman loved so much.She found out a few days later when she arrived at the site of an engineering work order, only to find Melissa standing behind the door. Quickly she pulled her into the room, babbling nervously about population reduction and oxygen system failures and I have to get to the ground I have to make sure Scott’s okay.It suddenly clicked. Her son was on the ground. Vaguely Lydia remembered the soft-spoken kid with the goofy grin from her classes. She also remembered him always being by Stiles’ side, and Stiles being by his. Swallowing thickly, she interrupted the panicked woman and asked, “So why exactly am I here?”{ a Stydia AU based on The 100 }





	1. Chapter 1

Lydia had been in her workroom when she felt it, that unsettling shudder of something detaching from the Beacon, of something momentous happening right around them. Everyone had felt it, and everyone (including her) had rushed into the hallway with scared and confused expressions to wait for an explanation.

The one that had come through the crackling speakers in the usual perfunctory tone of the Beacon officials told them an Exodus ship had been accidentally launched due to a maintenance malfunction. Everyone had breathed a sigh of relief; accidents did happen, after all.

Lydia stayed in the hallway long after everyone else had filtered back to their morning routines. With a narrowed glare, she lifted her chin to stare down the rusting speaker high on the wall. Accidents did happen, but she knew as head of engineering, Deaton didn’t make _that_ type of mistake.

An Exodus ship had launched, she had no doubts about that--her heart still raced from the memory of their metal home shaking beneath her feet--but it definitely had not been an accident. And if it wasn’t an accident, then the Council was hiding something. With one last narrowed glance at the wall speaker, Lydia slipped back inside her workroom, even if her mind was somewhere else entirely.

Lydia fiddled with the pendant dangling off the red string looped around her wrist as she waited in line at the entrance to the Skybox. Twenty minutes had passed since she had arrived, joining the other half-dozen people to wait for visitation hours to start. It seemed like too long, but since the Exodus launch, everything made her nervous. Besides, she had never been down here before, except the once, right after everything had gone so horribly wrong--so maybe this delay was normal.

She closed her eyes briefly to will the memory and guilt away. What was done was done. Stiles was in the Skybox, and she wasn’t (though she should be, there, in his place). But there was no changing anything now.

When the thick door to the prison creaked open, everyone swarmed forward, Lydia included. They were stopped by a guard--nametag read Haigh--who held up his hands for quiet.

“Viral outbreak. No one is allowed visitation for the foreseeable future.”

Noises of disappointment and outrage rose up, and Lydia swallowed tightly. The back of her neck prickled and suddenly her worry didn’t seem so unwarranted anymore. As the guard began answering questions by not really answering but instead pulling rank, though, her worry turned to suspicion. Something just wasn’t right here, or anywhere on the Ark it seemed these days.

Carefully she glanced around the room, looking for any clue, any sign. Lydia almost smiled when she saw the open air vent in the ceiling, the one that connected to the inside of the Skybox. Quickly she turned on her heel and strode away from the pleading crowd.

It would do no good to try and get information out of Haigh or his fellow guards, but she did know someone who just might actually be able to tell her what the hell was going on.

* * *

 

When the voices on the other side of the vent paused, Lydia held her breath. There was a solid layer of metal between her and the control room where she had followed Dr. McCall and her assistant, but still, with all she had to lose, she couldn’t take a chance of them hearing her. Ever since Dr. McCall had told her the vents were open because the virus wasn’t airborne, she had been trailing the doctor in her spare time. She knew, yet again, something wasn’t right, which was how she ended up listening in to Dr. McCall’s conversation from a stuffy, overheated air vent.

Sweat collected at her hairline while she eavesdropped. It was almost too much to take in: a hundred underage prisoners had been sent to the ground to see if it was survivable again. Rage and confusion warred within her. They were supposed to have another handful of generations to worry about returning to Earth, and how dare they use _children_ for that mission.

The logical side of her mind nagged that she was still missing pieces of the story, but her concern for those kids, for _Stiles_ , quieted its protests. Her fingers were growing numb from how tightly, how angrily her hands clutched the rungs of the ladder she was balancing on. When Dr. McCall started speaking again, Lydia started shifting her weight to her hands wouldn’t go numb. As she did so, the soles of her sneakers slipped and suddenly she was dangling by her hands, her feet knocking into the ladder rails with a loud clang. Panicking, she immediately started scurrying up the rungs. Getting caught surely meant getting floated.

The beeps of the vent door opening told her she was too late, and then someone was gripping her ankle and tugging her down. Heart thudding in her chest, she let them drag her into the control room. Even as frightened as she was, she ignored the wide-eyed stares of Dr. McCall and the assistant and instead took the chance to look around. She could see the monitors better from here, the ones that listed the vitals of those on the ground. Disappointment flooded her when she couldn’t find Stiles.

The assistant going for the radio, however, jogged her back to the problem at hand.

“They’re not dying,” she announced primly. Immediately Dr. McCall’s hand shot up, stopping her assistant.

“What?” She asked, her voice not quite steady enough to belie her desperation.

Lydia stepped forward, one eye on the monitors and the other on the doctor. “They’re taking off the wristbands.”

“ _Why_?”

Lydia folded her arms across her chest, lifted her chin, and with raised eyebrows said, “You sent a hundred _juvenile delinquents_ to the ground with express instructions to keep the wristbands on at all costs.”

It only took the doctor another beat. “Oh, for the love of--they’re taking them off because we told them _not_ to?”

Lydia threw her a grim smile of approval, and Dr. McCall sighed heavily. The despair in her eyes had been replaced by a glimmer of hope though, and it made Lydia wonder who it was on the ground that this woman loved so much.

* * *

 

She found out a few days later when she arrived at the site of an engineering work order, only to find Melissa standing behind the door. Quickly she pulled her into the room, babbling nervously about population reduction and oxygen system failures and _I have to get to the ground I have to make sure Scott’s okay._

It suddenly clicked. Her _son_ was on the ground. Vaguely Lydia remembered the soft-spoken kid with the goofy grin from her classes. They had taken some science classes together, and she was (unfairly) surprised at his quiet intelligence. She also remember him always being by Stiles side, and Stiles being by his. Swallowing thickly, she interrupted the panicked woman and asked, “So why exactly am I here?”

Immediately Melissa pulled a sheet off of a large, bulky object off to the side. Lydia widened her eyes at the sight of a rusted old-fashioned space pod. “That thing has seen better years.”

“It needs to get me to Earth in less than ten days.”

Lydia snorted. She couldn’t help it because the thing was a hunk of junk.

Melissa just stared at her, jaw set. “You’re the brightest engineer the Beacon has seen in fifty--”

“Fifty two,” Lydia corrected with a tight smile.

“--years. If you can’t get this up and running, then nobody can.”

“This will be almost impossible.”

“So you can’t do it.”

Lydia’s eyebrows shot up. “I said _almost_ impossible.”

A hint of a smile lurked at the corners of Melissa’s mouth. “Ten days, Lydia.”

“I have one condition. I go with you.”

The woman frowned, but Lydia stared her down even as her heart beat rapidly. The idea had come to her suddenly, reflexively, but she didn’t regret it. She had to go down there, to pay her penance. Stiles was down there because he had been in the Skybox, and he was in the Skybox because of her. He had made a huge sacrifice for her; it was only fair that she risk her life in return for him.

“Fine,” Melissa said slowly. “Remember, ten days.”

Lydia nodded, then crawled into the tiny control area to look at what exactly she had gotten herself into. Her threadbare and faded flowered skirt caught on loose wires, nearly snagging holes in the fabric. She bumped her head on something, and a loose handle fell to the metal floor with a clang. Sighing heavily, she began making mental notes and figuring out just how far she was going to twist Morell’s arm to get the parts she needed.

* * *

 

As it turned out, having a Council member on your side had its perks. Melissa was able to put just the right leverage on the Beacon’s black market leader to get Lydia the parts. She worked round the clock on the pod, and Melissa was there a lot of the time. It was distracting, because she talked, and she talked a lot, but there was a loneliness to it. Lydia couldn’t bring herself to ask her to stop.

Still, it was all could do not to flinch every time Melissa mentioned Scott. There wasn’t a mother who loved her son more, and she was doing all of this--breaking the law, risking her life--all because she loved him. It was only gratitude that fueled Lydia, gratitude and guilt, and it left a hollowness in her gut that only grew as their launch day drew closer. She didn’t love Stiles, not the way he loved her, and she wasn’t sure if she would have done this--breaking the law, risking her life--if he hadn’t done it for her first.

Those parts proved to be more trouble than they were worth, though, when Melissa came rushing in a few days later.

“They arrested Morell, and she turned on us,” she explained, slamming and locking the door behind her. “We have to launch. Now!”

Lydia’s hands shook. “I need more time.”

Melissa blanched. “How much more?”

“The regulator was faulty, and I’ve been trying to fix it but--” Lydia paused, mind whirring as she fixed on a possible solution. “Never mind. We can use a suit instead. Screw the pressure regulator.”

She hurried to put the suit on, looking for another to hand to Melissa when she realized--there was only one suit. Hurriedly she began to pull it off, but the other woman stopped her.

“I’ll stall them,” Melissa said with a brave smile but tears in her eyes.

“No,” Lydia protested vehemently. “Scott’s down there, and you need to go, to let the Council know--”

“You can do that.” She put her hands on her shoulders, squeezing in reassurance. “Radio in as soon as you land.”

“Melissa, they’ll float you!”

Her smiled widened in a loving, painful way. “Tell Scott I love him.”

Before Lydia could stop her, she was out the door. Lydia breathed in raggedly for a moment, then another, before rushing forward to lock it. She wasn’t about to waste Melissa’s sacrifice even as her stomach rolled with sick guilt. Yet again someone was sacrificing themselves for her, and yet again, she wasn’t sure if she deserved it.

There wasn’t time to waste on guilt or fear or regret or emotion at all, so Lydia hastily secured herself in the suit, then took her place in the pod. The thick gloves of the suit masked the trembling of her hands, but she could feel their twitching motion rattle her right down to her bones, down to her very being.

She was going to the _ground_.

“Here we go,” she breathed, pressed the blinking green button, and then pulled the lever.

The pod shuddered. After a creak and a groan, her stomach dropped as the floor fell out from under the tiny ship and it launched. Lights blurred as the pod tumbled through space, and her teeth clacked together. Pressure built in her ears. For a moment, she panicked because _what if the suit wasn’t sealed properly_ but then she gasped in a breath and didn’t die. The pressure continued to build, though. Painful and demanding, Lydia struggled to figure out where it was coming from. The pod rocked as it busted through the first layers of Earth’s atmosphere. Immediately the pressure bubbled up in her throat until she had no choice.

Lydia had no choice but to scream loud and long enough that she soon felt something pop inside of her, and then felt something wet and warm dripping out of her ears. The illuminated buttons of the pod blurred in and out of her vision, but it wasn’t until her throat was too raw to let out another sound that they dulled in brightness. Everything dulled to gray, and finally---to black.


	2. Chapter 2

When Lydia woke, there was no pressure in her head anymore, but there was a steady, strong, painful pounding. Groaning, she fumbled to take off her helmet. She gasped when it released and breathed in the freshest air she had ever smelled. It was almost too much--wet and rich and cloying. Looking around, she noticed the cracks in her pods window, which was where the air was coming from.

Slowly she began unbuckling herself. She had to give the pod door a few kicks to open it, and when it did, a cool gust rushed right in. Lydia smiled at the sensation, awed even by the small glimpse of fallen leaves on the ground. With tentative movements, she stepped out of the pod and onto the ground.

_The ground._

Even with the overcast sky, Lydia had to shield eyes from the brightness of the outdoors. Everything amazed her: the trees, their branches and leaves, the bushes clustered among trunks and roots, the dull shimmer of rocks poking up from damp earth, the soft whisper of a misty breeze. Eagerly she shed the rest of her spacesuit, shivering as the air hit her skin. It was almost overwhelming to take in the scent and feel and sight and sounds all at once, so new and unfamiliar.

She couldn’t help herself: she spun around, her skirt flaring out and leaves crunching beneath her boots. She was _on the ground._

“Oh my god.”

Her heart stuttered from amazement to fear as someone spoke. Whipping around, she saw a girl no older than her standing there, staring at her in awe.

“You’re from the Beacon?” She asked.

Lydia nodded, taking in her short standard Beacon-issue cut brown hair and uniform-like clothing; she must be one of the delinquents. “I’m Lydia. Dr. McCall sent me down here to make sure you all were still alive. How many--”

“That’s Scott’s mom,” the girl interrupted bluntly. “He’s still alive.”

Relief flooded through Lydia at that reassurance, but then apprehension replaced it as the girl continued.

“Though he may not be for long if he keeps getting in Derek’s way. I’m Malia, by the way.”

“What’s going on with Scott?” Lydia demanded. For all that Melissa had sacrificed to get her down here, she was going to make sure Scott was okay. (Not to mention it kept her pulse in check when she thought about if _another_ boy, the one who she had come down here for, was still alive).

Malia sniffed the air, sighed, then gestured for Lydia to sit. “You’re bleeding. And this will take a while.”

Lydia obliged and Malia handed her some bandages from her pocket. She dabbed at the cuts on her head while listening to the girl explain how when they had landed, it had been chaos. Derek Hale--a guard-turned-janitor who had snuck on board the delinquents’ dropship to save his incarcerated sister Cora--had encouraged that chaos while Scott had tried to bring some semblance of order to the camp.

“They’ve been at each other’s throats since we landed,” Malia finished. “Doesn’t help that Scott wants to make peace with the Hunters.”

“The Hunters?”

“You know how they told us no one survived on the ground? Yeah, that was bullshit. We have some crazy blade- and bow-wielding locals trying to kill us.”

“Why do they want to--”

“Malia!”

Lydia froze, because she _knew_ that voice. Then rustling and crashing sounded behind her, and when she turned around, there was Stiles.

“Look what I found!” Malia called out happily.

Lydia barely heard her. She was staring at Stiles, who was staring right back at her. He gaped, then raised a hand to cover his mouth, stunned. She opened her mouth to explain, to tell him how sorry she was, that she had come down here to make sure he was still alive. The words wouldn’t surface, however. Instead, she found herself rising from the rock she was sitting on and stumbling towards him.

When she crashed into him, his arms latched around her immediately. Lydia burrowed her face into his shoulder, the fabric rough and worn like she was used to on the Beacon but smelling like the boy she had almost had to live without.

_Stiles stiles stiles. Alive alive alive._

She wasn’t even close to being done embracing him when she heard a rough growl behind her. Letting out a cry, she turned in Stiles’ arms only to see Malia staring at her with bared teeth and glowing yellow eyes.

Immediately Stiles pushed her behind him, and she tried to grab him, to stop him from making himself a barrier between her and the world yet again. When she realized, however, that he was talking to Malia calmly, fondly, _intimately_ she stopped. A numb feeling spread through her chest as she watching Stiles cup Malia’s face and brush his thumbs across her cheeks. She looked away because the expression on Malia’s face--scared but trustful--was more than she had ever given Stiles. There was a time when she wouldn’t have even looked at him, wouldn’t have even noticed him at all.

Reality finally sank in when she heard Stiles’ whisper carry over on the breeze: _she’s just a friend._

It took her a few moments to realize that the two of them had come to stand by her, both apprehensive.

“We’ll explain all of that,” he offered, gesturing wildly at Malia, “back at camp.” He still had one hand hovering near Malia’s waist, and Lydia was trying her best not to stare at it.

“Explain what?” she asked a bit snappishly. She knew what she had seen, but what she had seen (animal eyes on a human face, teeth belonging to carnivores long since extinct) couldn’t be real. It had to be the difference in oxygen content making her see things, or the radiation making her hallucinate--maybe the ground wasn’t survivable, maybe she really was dead, maybe this was just all her brain could come up with as it started to decay from the---

“Lydia, Lydia, come on, stay with me. Lydia!”

She blinked and saw Stiles crouching in front of her. Clenching her fingers, she felt them scrape against something rough and damp. She looked down and saw stone--she was sitting on a nearby rock. How she got there, she didn’t know. What she did know was that her breathing was too shallow and her head was spinning in an unpleasant way.

“Maybe it’s getting to her too,” Malia said as she stood over both of them looking only mildly concerned.

“What’s getting to me?” Lydia asked, sounding weaker than she wanted.

“We’ll explain at camp,” Stiles repeated but more gently this time.

She didn’t expect his arm to come around her to help her up, nor the swooping sensation in her stomach that had nothing to do with her faintness from before. It made her tense when she realized how much of a relief it was to have Stiles so close to her, and even tenser when Malia came around to support her from the other side.

This was a rough way to land on earth, and she couldn’t help but be a little resentful that it had been nothing like she had anticipated.

By the time they reached the treeline, Lydia had managed to shake them both off. She could feel Stiles resist, wanting to hold onto her, but she didn’t need to be the youngest zero-g engineer in fifty two years to see that he wasn’t hers to rely on anymore. So she stepped forward into the forest on her own two feet.

This was the ground, and this was her new reality. She might as well get used to it.

Tension was palpable in the camp when they arrived and soon enough Lydia realized that was just the norm. All the kids were working to build up food stores or fortify the wall with just the smallest bit of chatter filling the damp air of the yard. It wasn’t the chaotic mess she was expecting from a group of juvenile delinquents who had meager supplies and almost no practical skills for surviving on the ground.

She didn’t get a chance to look around more before she heard shouting. Malia sighed in exasperation, and Stiles grimaced as two shouting boys--both with dark hair--came storming out of the dropship. The argument stopped when one of the shouting boys--Scott, she realized, even with his longer hair--turned and saw her. His eyes widened in recognition and surprise.

“Courtesy of your mom,” she quipped with a grim smile.

A pained expression fell over his face, but before she could respond she was distracted by Derek edging away from them slightly. Stiles seemed to notice as well and got in his way.

“Where are you going huh? You can’t just leave,” he taunted. Then he turned back to the rest of them. “He’s the one who destroyed the radio.”

Scott’s expression darkened and soon enough he was up in Derek’s face, yelling at him again.

The fighting escalated, and they started to get wary looks from the other delinquents. Malia grumbled under her breath then boldly stepped in between the two boys. “Take it inside where everyone can’t see your pissing contest, alright?”

Derek looked as if he was going to walk away but then Lydia swore she saw Scott’s dark eyes flash bright blue. She blinked and then they were back to warm brown, and everyone was filing into a nearby makeshift tent.

Once inside, Lydia wasn’t sure if she or Scott were glaring harder at Derek. The sunlight filtering through the fabric threw the older boy’s face into shadow, making his stubborn grimace appear even fiercer.

“Just tell us where you ditched the radio,” Scott said through clenched teeth.

“I told you,” Derek sniped back, “I threw it in the river.”

“Where?” she demanded.

“It doesn’t matter! It’s waterlogged by now. It’s not going to do anybody any good.”

“Three hundred people, Derek,” Scott said. His voice had dropped a little bit, harder, rougher, more rumbling. “They are going to kill _three hundred people_ if we don’t contact them by tonight.”

“And I need the radio to do that,” Lydia added fiercely.

Derek scowled harder. “That radio is dead, there’s no--”

Stiles snorted, drawing everyone’s attention. He shrugged then said, “You clearly don’t know Lydia. Trust me, she’ll get it working again, no matter what.”

She hated the way a thrill ran through her at his praise. That type of comment used to make her roll her eyes on the Ark as she walked right by him. Now she just hoped the blush she was feeling creep onto her cheeks wasn’t noticeable to anyone inside the dimly lit tent.

“He’s not wrong,” she said when she had corrected herself. “But I will probably need some extra parts. Do you have anything like a receiver around, anything that produces or intercepts transmissions?”

They all looked at her with resigned expressions until Malia spoke up.

“The bunker,” she said simply.

Stiles shifted immediately, exchanging a look with her. There was a smile in his eyes when he locked gazes with Malia, but it disappeared when he turned back to Lydia.

“Yeah, there might be something in this bunker we found.”

“Great,” Scott interrupted. “Malia can take Lydia to go get parts and the rest of us can go look for the radio as soon as Derek tells us where it is.”

When Lydia left with Malia, they were still arguing, but she had a feeling it wouldn’t be for long. There was just something about Scott, an energy around him, that made her feel as if no one could stand against him for too long without giving into what he wanted. For any other person, she’d be worried about that feeling, but with Scott, she felt like he might actually use it to do good.

She almost asked Malia about it on their walk to the bunker but it was only a short trip. Then they were in the underground room, and she noticed the rumpled blankets piled on the couch and the way in which Malia was looking everywhere but there. Lydia’s throat tightened because _oh_. This had been their place--Stiles and Malia’s.

It wasn’t until she tripped over a toy car that she remembered the reason they were there: parts for a radio, parts that would save a few hundred people from being floated.

A too-late crush didn’t hold a candle to hundreds of lives, so Lydia pasted a smile on her face and pretended to be happy about the find instead of letting herself slide into regret at missed chances.


	3. Chapter 3

It wasn’t enough. Though she had salvaged parts from both the recovered radio and the toy car, there was no way she could build a sufficient device in time to get in touch with the Beacon. Devastation crossed over Scott’s face when she admitted it, and Derek merely stormed out of the tent.

“Running away again, big surprise,” Stiles snarked under his breath.

Immediately a rough growl--too violent to be human--had ripped through the camp from right outside the tent. Lydia shivered, not missing the way Stiles shifted towards her. She ignored it, instead turning to Scott.

“There might be another way to stop them, though. We don’t have to talk to them--they just have to know we’re alive, right?”

He nodded, listening more and more intently as she explained her plan with the rocket flares. When he threw her a grateful, relieved smile at the end, she gave him a small one in return. They might be able to actually do this.

Soon enough Scott had the entire camp rushing to construct a whole slew of flares. They were finished by the time the sun set, which was closer to the time of the anticipated culling than either Lydia or he would like. Still, they managed to send off the signals, watching them tensely as they streaked red across the blue-black night sky.

Lydia’s ears popped as they launched the last flare. The whine of it shooting off rang around inside her skull, not dampening even as it left the ground, and them, far behind. Instead, the hum grew louder, building and building and building. Blinking, she tried to shake the buzzing away. It didn’t help, and she started to feel faint. Vaguely she heard Scott ask if she was okay, and then Stiles was doing a double take at her even as he had his arms wrapped around Malia.

Somehow she managed to ward both of them off, but then her knees buckled. She crumbled into a heap on the damp earth. She could smell the dirt as she dug her hands in, unable to withstand the painful hissing and screeching resounding inside her head. Finally, it was too much. It was too much and she just had to--

**_s c r e e e e e e e e e a m_.**

Gasping for breath, Lydia wondered if her throat was bleeding. It felt raw enough to be, having been roughened by the piercing shriek she had let out. Suddenly she realized there were lights in the sky again, but they weren’t red, and there were far, far more of them now. They were smaller, silver-white streaks coming in dozens, then hundreds, spreading across the sky like bleached flecks on dark fabric.

“Too late,” she rasped as understanding finally gripped her. _Bodies from the culling._ “We were too late.”

She had tumbled to earth, found her radio, built the flares, and even after enduring all that to save everyone--three hundred people still died.

Scott’s mother, Stiles’ father, _her mother_ \--any one of the delinquents’ parents could now be one of the burning smears in the sky. Dead, lost among the stars while their children eked out a meager existence on the ground.

A choking hiccup escaped her. She was crying. Suddenly warm arms were around her, and she looked to her right to see Scott helping her up.

“C’mon,” he murmured. “You’ve done enough for today.”

She was too numb to do anything but nod and allow Scott to half-carry her back to a tent to sleep.

* * *

 

Strangely, sleep washed over her easily, despite her sore throat and dark thoughts. Lydia was so deeply under that it took her a full few minutes after being shaken awake later on to get her bearings.

Scott blinked down at her, gaze furtive and a finger pressed to his lips asking for silence. She frowned at him without moving.

He jerked his head towards the door. Lydia huffed and scowled more. She wasn’t following him out into the pitch dark without a reason.

Sighing himself, Scott whispered, “I know somebody who can help you.”

“Help me with what?” she hissed back.

“With what you are.”

“What I am? I’ll tell you what I am! A girl who stupidly decided coming to the ground would be a _fabulous_ idea--”

She stopped mid-sentence when she saw Scott’s eyes flash bright ruby-red. A quiet, strangled sound left her, which had him clamping a hand down over her mouth.

“The radiation down here does something to us,” he said. His voice was soft, almost apologetic. “Stiles said you saw Malia earlier. And after you almost fainting right before the culling...I think it’s doing something to you too.”

“And you know all this because?” she snapped.

“I can explain, but just come with me, please,” he pleaded.

Lydia considered him carefully. There was no frustration in his expression, no hardness in his eyes that only watched her with care. She could tell that he wouldn’t force her to go, that if she told him to get the hell out of her tent and never talk to her about things she couldn’t explain again, that he would do as she asked.

Which was the exact reason she let out a reluctant sigh and pushed him away from her bed. “Fine. Lead the way. But if we get eaten by something out there, I’m going to find you in the afterlife and kill you again.”

That managed to get a tiny grin out of Scott. It helped ease her nerves, seeing him so calm. He hadn’t been down here much longer than her, but she knew she could trust him, wherever he was taking her.

She wasn’t feeling so confident when they were surrounded by tall trees and darkness. They had been walking for quite a while. At first, Scott had filled the time by telling her about what he was (werewolf) and what the others were (werecoyote, kitsune, wendigo, shapeshifter, the list went on). Soon, though, he simply grew quiet as he let her think through all of that new information. The farther they walked, the more apprehensive she grew. Scott didn’t seem to be lost, but neither was he following an obvious path. The leaves rustled above her as the wind gusted around them, whipping her skirt against her thighs.

“Scott, where are we going?” she hissed as she stomped across the forest floor to get closer to him.

He waved a hand to shush her. Bristling, she opened her mouth to insist they go back, but then he stopped suddenly. Lydia realized they were now in a small clearing. Then Scott whistled sharply, and it made her jump.

“What the hell are you doing?”

He didn’t respond, just watched the treeline across the way. A minute passed, and then a figure stepped out from the shadows.

It was just a girl, but there was a wildness about her that made Lydia want to take a step back. Dark hair cascaded in messy curls to her waist, and strapped over her trim clothes was a arrow quiver and a large bow. She was no doubt one of the Hunters she had heard so much about, the ones who had been attacking the camp. This one, however, apparently was different.

“This is Allison,” Scott said softly. He stepped so easily into the space between them, and Allison’s hand twitched by her side, as if to reach for him. Lydia glanced between the two, taking in the way they seemed to be connected by an invisible thread. She raised her eyebrows when the two shared a glance of their own and a small smile broke out on the fierce girl’s face.

“I didn’t come here to watch you two fawn over each other,” Lydia sighed. Allison frowned, but Scott just blushed and stuttered before explaining what they needed from the Hunter girl.

Before he even finished, Lydia interrupted, “So am I radioactive freak or not?”

Allison’s gaze swiveled to Scott who was fighting a smile. Surprisingly, when the Hunter girl looked back at her, she her lips were twisted into a wry smile too.

“I have heard stories,” Allison said quietly. “Of those like you.”

When she didn’t continue, Lydia waved her hand impatiently. She ignored the nerves fluttering in her stomach and instead focused on the girl’s amused huff.

“Of those like you,” she repeatedly pointedly, but in a light tone, “who are a bridge between our world and others, who can sense death.”

Shock took hold of Lydia for a beat, and then she muttered, “What, I’m like a super depressing Geiger counter?”

Allison raised her eyebrows and Scott dropped his head. Lydia shifted her weight from one foot to the next and then decided she should at least _try_ to be cooperative. “I sense death,” she said. The words felt strange on her lips, lips that had indeed let out screams when danger was imminent or souls were becoming stardust. “Is there a name for what I am?”

“Banshee.”

Lydia didn’t expect the pang of melancholy resolution that ran through her at that declaration, not the soft squeeze of Allison’s hand on her arm. The reassurance was soothing, even from a stranger. A soft smile in the Hunter girl’s direction slipped past her better judgement, followed by a whispered _thank you._ Allison smiled as well, and for a moment Lydia felt the heaviness in her chest lift.

Like two magnets, though, Scott and Allison snapped back together, at each other’s sides in the matter of a few heartbeats. They weren’t even aware of it, how they moved in tandem. Neither noticed how Allison dipped her head in his direction just before Scott started speaking, or how Scott read and answered the question on her face before she even voiced it. Nor did they notice Lydia wrapping her arms around her middle and moving to the edge of the clearing to wait until they had finished talking.

There were three of them out in the forest that night, but as Lydia watched the star-crossed couple under the starry sky, she had never felt more alone.

* * *

 

The next handful of days passed by not in a blur, but in shuddering starts and stops. Everything was just _more_ down on the ground--faster, brighter, louder. Lydia couldn’t keep up sometimes, between redesigning the camp wall to make it sturdier, keeping an eye on Scott, sketching out a meat house for them to store food in, avoiding Derek, and trying even harder to avoid Stiles and Malia. When time finally slowed, she wished it didn’t, because then she would realize how cold she was, or how hungry, or how utterly _screwed_ they all were. Earth Skills was a joke compared to what they actually needed to know down here to survive.

They would not have survived this long had it not been for Allison. Now that Lydia knew about her, Scott sometimes took her along when they met up in the late, dark hours. They would follow the trail of stones marked with painted flowers to the clearing where they would collect healing herbs or information about where the best new place to hunt was. Sometimes Lydia even went without Scott and those were better times; she didn’t feel like she was intruding. Instead, she felt like Allison, for all her warpaint and weapons, had enough softness to allow Lydia to let herself be soft too. At camp she had to be the all-knowing engineer who could save their asses; in the clearing with Allison, she could ask questions about the stars or quiz her on why _exactly_ the butterflies glowed blue.

“Does it matter?” Allison had replied in amusement to that last question.

Lydia had just sighed, letting out a little dry laugh. “I suppose not.”

They had stayed quiet after that, watching bright wings flutter against a dark sky.


End file.
